PATRIS 

Florence Ellinwood Allen 



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PATRIS 



PATRIS 



BY 
FLORENCE ELLINWOOD ALLEN 



Cleveland 

Published by Horace Carr 

1908 






LIBRARY of CONGAS 
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A«r>K 2% 1908 

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Copyrighted, 1908, by 
Florence Ellinwood Allen 

Published April, 1908 



Press of Horace Carr 
Cleveland 



TO MARION PRENTISS STRATTON 



CONTENTS 








PAGE 


The Old World to the New .... 7 


East .... 








9 


West 










10 


Law 










11 


Prophets 










13 


Land-Sighting 










15 


Morning-Song 










16 


In Chapel 










17 


Ver Immortale 










18 


Beethoven 










19 


Hagar 










20 


Orpheus 










21 


Song of the Rails 










22 


College Recessional 










23 


To Charis 










24 


Ananias 










25 


Sonnet . 










26 


Fifths . 










27 


Western Cradle Song 










28 


En Voyage 










29 


Serenade 










30 


Valentine 










31 


To C. R. . 










32 


The Sun-Dial 










33 


Interlude to Sakuntala 










37 


Student's Speech 










38 


Wood-Nymph's Song 










39 


Theocritus, Idyll I . 










40 


Theocritus, Idyll I . 










42 


Les Nuits de Juin 










45 


Whence Cometh My Help 








47 


The Pharisee 








48 


The Calling of the West 










49 



PATRIS 



THE OLD WORLD TO THE NEW 

Stand there, Magnificent, with free, unbended head, 
The dawn within your eyes! 



I, too, was young once, and strong, but not so, 

For in darkness I lay, 
And heard but the raging of beasts that were men, 

As I waited the day. 

For eons of night I groped madly alone, 

As they stifled my mind, 
And the passion of love that surged up in my heart 

Was impotent, blind. 

They trained my deft hands to all fanciful art, 

To trace marvelous line, 
To hew stone into form, to pour life into clay, 

Make all seen beauty mine. 



8 PATRIS 

And my fingers are lord of the chisel and brush 

That your hands cannot hold, 
And vast flooding harmonies surge through my soul 

When your spirit lies cold. 

But O for the uplift, the unfettered mind 

That beams from your brow ! 
The poise of the soul that can act, need not feel, 

Can act, and knows how ! 

And I count all my culture but barrenest gain 

From the years that are sped, 
As I gaze on my passion-swept age, and your youth, 

And know myself dead! 



PATR1S 



EAST 



What are these that huddle in thy gates? 

A countless, hideous rabble: Call ye them children? 



With twisted, tortured bodies, shrivelled arms, and 

evil-conscious faces, 
For them the only warmth the roaring fires of glass 

and factory furnace, 
The dampness of the mines; 
Instead of meadow-flowers, dank and clinging odors; 
Ears that should hear the song of birds, and hum 

of bees, 
And trilling of the cricket, numbed and deaf 
With crash of drill and loom and rumble of the 

chute ; 
Eyes beauty-loving, dulled with unloveliness, 
Seared by the glare of furnace, blind 
With staring, mole-like, in the senseless dark ; 
Budding souls crushed lifeless under heel. 



Out of the slavery of other lands they came to us 

For freedom. 

What are we doing with them, East, my East? 



PATRIS 

WEST 

Oh it's West, and my West I am singing, 

With its infinite stretches of sky, 
And the yellow light of the morning, 

Ablaze on the uplands high; 
With the clouds lying low in the valleys 
Like folds of soft-billowing white, 

And the spruce blue-grey 

And the aspen a-sway 
On the mesa's brown-shelving height. 

And it's West, my West, I am singing, 

The mountains all misty-grey, 
And the quivering lights on the foothills 

Like stars that swing and that sway, 
When the flying lights from the engine 
Flash out on a blur of sand, 

And the telegraph-wire, 

Silver-threaded with fire, 
Leads on to the Wonderful Land ! 



Ah, West, my West, keep thee noble! 

For the freedom of hills is vain, 
And the breath of thy mountain-meadows 

May stifle as that of the plain, 
If violence sap thy justice, 
In the grapple 'twixt passion and greed, 

And the limitless might 

Of free, inborn right 
Decay to unchecked, lawless deed. 



PATRIS II 

LAW 

Ere Montesquieu communed with thee alone, 
And knew the spirit of thee, soul to soul; 
Ere Draco warped thy stern benevolence 
To cruel rigor; 

Ere Hammurabi graved his code of stone 
And named thee to the world, 
Thou wast ! 

Before the heavens shaped them of the void, 
Before the seething, boundless floods were stayed, 
Before the ancient streams and deathless hills, 
Thou wast ! 

Thou art eternal ; from thee all things spring, 
To thee again return. Always and ever, 
Thou art ! 



Thou art not cabined into mortal shape, 
Yet of thee comes all symmetry of form, 
And graceful sweep of line, and play of color. 
Thou art unheard, and yet thy essence dwells 
In every cadence of a throbbing song, 
Or swelling onrush of a symphony. 
Thou art all beauty, as thou art all life. 



Nay, if we lose thee for a flash of time, 

Bow to the falsehood of new passions, sway to 

blasts 
Of furious feeling — thou changest not. 



12 PATRIS 

Nations who live without thee surely die: 
Die, not the easy death of sudden ruin, 
But gradual wasting, innermost decay, 
The state a prey to evil — a bitter thing, 
The exalted so defiled ! 
—Yet thy firm purpose orders as before. 



Where is our Pilgrim sense of solid right? 
Where is our old-time keeping of the law? 
Where is our sturdy sanity and strength? 
Rapine pardoned, violence unpunished, 
The excellent citizens unheeding! 



Law, thou changest not. 
Our heritage it was to know thee. 
Do we sell thee for a mess of pottage? 



PATRIS 13 



PROPHETS 



Not in the guise of prophets stern of old, 

In white-lipped anger, hand in threatening 

raised, 
Visions of blinding loveliness with horror 
mazed, 
Deep hallowed love unto the people cold ; 

Not as the devotee in cowl and hood, 

Frame racked by toil and fasting, deep eyes 

keen 
To spy out evil, lips aye clean 

And powerful to denounce the indifferent good ; 

But in the little signs of slow decay ; 

The first faint rift within the wall rock-hewn, 
Irregular and jagged, where too soon 

A mighty fissure rends along its way. 

The sale of public posts by those professed 

To guard their country's honor, and the shame 
Of party bribery — treason, not in name, 

But in the heart of it, too well confessed : 

These be the lesser prophets, and their cry 
Is potent with the doom of lands that die. 

Lo, yonder where the wall is undermined, 
Property never safe from grasping wealth, 
Person unsuccored from the blow of stealth 

Or openness ; judger and wrong combined. 



14 PATRIS 

And, yonder, at the very temple gate, 

In dapper garb, with white and taper hands, 
Men of our race, but born of other lands 

And times, do still and subtly lie in wait, 

With sensual sneer and principles diseased 
To teach the creed of moral unrestraint, 
And plant the swift-maturing seed of taint. 

These be our greater prophets, and their cry 
Is anguished with the doom of lands that die. 



PATRIS 15 

LAND-SIGHTING 

Somewhere within that heavy western mist 
There lies my native land. 
Almost I could, across the lapse of waves, 
Feel her swift, silent greeting. 



Lovelier than any green alluring isle, 
Fringed with slender palms, and honey-sweet, 
Where the enchantment languorous of the Orient 

broods ; 
More glamored than the romance-hallowed shores 
Of Europe, with its ruined keeps and towers, 
And potent spells that hover in the dusk 
Of echoing cathedrals — 
That low coast, still invisible, but felt, almost with 

pain. 



Stronger than any man of steel in force and bound- 
less freedom, 

Weaker than any shell-like girl in thy dependence, 

Thy utter need of us, the people, 

Thou and thy being, in glory or in stigma, freedom 
or enslavement, 

Care I or not, I share in shaping thee. 



Somehow to guard thee from betrayal, 
Keep thy brow high, thy pure heart pure. 



16 PATRIS 



MORNING-SONG 

Rosy cloud and a skylark's song: 

Wake, my little one, wake ! 
The spurge lies russet the fields along, 
And the daisies dance to the wind's blithe song: 

Wake, my little one, wake! 

The faint moon floats in a sea of blue! 

Wake, my little one, wake! 
Where only a white-capped cloud or two 
Ever hides her pallid face from view, 

Wake, my little one, wake! 

Wake, little girl, and I'll show to you 
Buttercup gold set with diamond dew, 
Strawberries crimson before the sun, 
And the gossamer web on the grasses spun, 
That shimmers like silk in its rainbow sheen, 
A wedding-robe for the fairy queen. 
Wake, my little one, wake! 



PATRIS 17 



IN CHAPEL 

The opal windows flush and glow 

With golden flaming fire; 
A tender choral, lingering slow 
From soft notes tremulous and low, 
Triumphant rises higher. 

Dear Alma Mater, as we bow 
Before thy sacred shrine, 
We long to have thy spirit true, 
To shape our awkward lives anew 
To love and strength like thine. 

And, deeply as the windows flash 

The glorious western sun, 
So may our lives show forth thy sign, 
Thy breadth of influence benign, 
Until our lives are done. 



18 PATRIS 



VER IMMORTALE 

Long lines of low-banked, sombre trees 

And sullen sky; 
Fast-shifting, faded, barren fields, 

That past me fly ; 
Dead leaves where dainty wind-flowers danced, 
Dead limbs where laughing sunbeams glanced 

In days gone by. 

But come, cast off this coward gloom, 

My heart, and sing ! 
Mind not the howling winter winds, 

Nor frost, nor sting ! 
Ere long, upspringing through the snow, 
The yellow crocus-cups will glow, 

And then — the Spring! 



PATR1S 19 



BEETHOVEN 

He caught from lucent stars, each one, a note, 

And strung them into linked melody ; 

From crashing storms he took his thunderingchords, 

And raging tempest music. 

The still calm of a starless, breathless night 

Sang in his soul its wonderful adagios. 



PATR1S 



HAGAR 

Sleep, sleep ! 
Wraith-like moon in an ashen sky ; 
Thick white mists creep up the hill, 
Gaunt-limbed and black are the weighted trees; 
And the air is choked, and hot, and still. 

Well sleep ! 

Wander there in your Eden bright; 
Reap the harvest of fading hours ; 
Waken to life all sorrow-free, 
And bring me a rose from those dream-sweet bowers. 
Sleep, sleep ! 

The time will come, perhaps, some day — 
God knows the time will come too soon ! — 
When you, as I, shall watch the play 
Of shadows cast by a wan-faced moon — 
Shadows that turn and twist and leer, 
As they mock at the hopes of the bygone year. 
Sleep, sleep ! 



PATRIS 



ORPHEUS 

Down through the long dark avenues of pain 
I follow her dear face, all strained and white, 
And see again her flower-form fall back 
Into the cavernous depths. Zeus! For one little 
look! 

Would that I too had died when there she fell, 
Stung 'mid the waving grass; then in the fields 
Sunlit, Elysian, zephyr-lulled, we two 
Should wander hand in hand, and twine our cups 
With glossy- leaved myrtle, and with iris, pale 
As her own lovely face. 

For one little look! 

Eurydice ! 



PATRIS 



SONG OF THE RAILS 

Farewell to the land of the rolling hills, 

Of the yellow-crested corn, 
And hail to the land of the rolling sand, 

Where the primrose flower is born ! 

The long, low ridges climb in the West 

To a blue-hazed, nearing wall, 
And I know that there lie the mountains bare, 

Bristling with pine-trees tall. 

For the dim East pales, as the glistening rails 

Leap into a single line, 
And the burnished curve, with its long-bent swerve, 

Leads on to the world that is mine! 



PATRIS 23 



COLLEGE RECESSIONAL 

Wisdom all-wise, which e'er hast shown 
Mere human knowledge to be lies, 

Casting to earth the lordly king 

Making him as the beast that dies, 

Grant us Thy mercy, make us know 

We are Thy creatures, weak and low. 

If, mad with learning, we essay 

Foppery of knowledge proud to wear; 

If, with our glittering sheaves of facts, 
To count ourselves divine we dare ! — 

Grant us Thy vision, make us know 

That we are trifling, worthless, low. 

Grant us to sift the false from true, 
And never from the true to part. 
Grant us the living truth to win 
And wear forever on our heart. 
Grant us Thy wisdom, make us know 
Thyself, our victory below. 



24 PATRIS 



TO CHARIS 

I call to my love, for the spring has returned, 
Flower-crowned, joy-girt, and the violets are 

blooming, 
The white-clustered locusts bend low with perfume, 
And the valley, her gay garb of verdure assuming 
Smiles into my eyes. Shall my flower of to-morrow, 
My blossom the sweetest — still hold me in sorrow? 

1 call to my love, for the spring has returned — 
Shy-glancing, sweet spring, and the robins are 

singing 
In shrill-noted carols of jubilant life, 
In clear, warbling trills from pure happiness spring- 
ing. 
And shall my sweet singer, my music divine, 
Be mute, and rob me of the song that is mine? 



PATRIS 25 



ANANIAS 

One-tenth of my God-given, misered soul 
I render back to him, and, guiltless, cry 
"Lord, here is all!" 



26 PATRIS 



SONNET 

Then I must bid my dream for aye good-bye — 
My dream so fair, and, like a wind-flower, frail ? 
I covered it away, lest it should fail, 

And only when the blue stars lit the sky, 

Like some coward thief I watched the shimmers fly 
Before my flickering light, adown its veil — 
Knew it for mine, yet even in the pale 

Grey dawn, I dared not think so, lest it die. 

Ah, Love! tho' all my life be one lost hope, 

One glimpse of crimson joy whose fragile head 

Bent in my hand, yet that it was the true 

Which for a moment led me, as I grope 

Within the bitter, barren waste, heart-dead, 

I sing ! I may have lost my dream — I still have you J 



PATRIS 27 



FIFTHS 

Here 'mid the tremulous dusk, 

Here 'mid the shadowing memories, 

Play me the old, old songs of the withered years. 

Play till the ivory keys pass like human fingers 

Over the vibrant strings of a ringing harp. 

Out of the darkness — play to me — 



28 PATRIS 



WESTERN CRADLE-SONG 

Sleep, little boy with the dusky eyes! 
Over the mountains a rosy haze 
Is veiling the snow-peaks which ever raise 

Their glistening height to the skies. 
The mourning-dove in the sage-brush grey 
Has silenced her tiresome, wailing song; 
And the prairie-dog, in his sand-castle strong, 
Has tucked himself snugly away. 

And, if you sleep well, little boy mine, 
You'll come to the land where Joyousness dwells, 
Where columbines toss their waxen bells, 

And sunbeams softly their rays entwine 
With the vibrant leaves of the aspen trees, 
Where downy white cotton-boats float the breeze, 
And the violet under the sage-brush lies. 
So sleep, little boy with the dusky eyes! 



PATRIS 29 



EN VOYAGE 

Low swings the sun, pale-gold, into pearly cloud ; 

Endless and deep and calm the silent sea, 
Save for the dashing spray that curls and laughs 
aloud, 
Blowing a rainbow out on the wind to me. 
And I think of the life and love so far behind, 
Of the boundless, pathless plains that stretch 
between, 
When lo! my rainbow of hope upon the wind, 
My new old friends — the friends I had never 
seen! 



30 * PATRIS 



SERENADE 



Slow-swinging star-lamps, 

Shedding veiled light, 
Shine for my love 

In her dreaming to-night. 
Say with your star-beams 

I'd gladly be blind 
To the sky's soft enchantment, 

If once I might find 
Awake in her brown eyes 

The starlight of love, 
Far deeper and brighter 

Than radiance above. 

Low-breathing zephyr, 

Arbutus-sweet, 
Waft your cool breezes 

My princess to greet ; 
Tell her the incense 

From far meadows blown, 
Fringed with white violets, 

Adder-tongue sown, 
Is naught to the sweetness 

Of her own dear face, 
Fragrant in exquisite 

Frail flower-grace. 



PATRIS 31 



VALENTINE 

Ah, love of my heart, to delight thee 
What valentine gift shall I bring? 

Fresh wreaths of deep-crimsoning roses, 
Or daffodils, fragrant of Spring? 

Nay, love, they will wither and blacken 
Mere ashes of beauty impart — 

My treasure of treasures I give thee, 
A loving and unchanging heart. 



32 PATRIS 



TO C. R. 

As some industrious, tawny bee 
Delves into incense-hearted flowers, 
And, gathering sweetness, bears it hence 
To store up future joy for friends: 
So thou, in healthful joyousness, 
Dost gather up the pollen-dust 
Of unmixed happiness from life, 
And bear it with thee, to dispense 
In free good comradeship to us. 



PATRIS 33 

THE SUN-DIAL 

College Campus, IV. R. U. 

Others may count the hours of sullen age, 
Or the insensate days of babyhood; 
I do but mark the beautiful and good, 

The book of youth, in joy-illumined page. 

Winters, when wonderful the windows glow, 
Shot with their crimson, sapphire and pure 

gold, 
Across the grey of chapel, and the cold, 

Unlimited expanse of drifted snow; 

Summers, when sunrise cuts its swaths of light 
Across the turf, and cool the morning air 
Shimmers adown the ivy ; when the fair 

And splendid stars flash out upon the night— 

I dwell 'mid joy — the joy and happy pain 
Of unembittered lives, that strive and strain, 
Trusting they shall at last the heights attain. 

Others may count lacklustre hours of age, 
Of drudgery, the witherer of truth; 
For me the record of all-glorious youth, 

Lambent with hope its rosy-tinted page. 



TRANSLATIONS 



PATRIS 37 

INTERLUDE TO SAKUNTALA 

Kalidasa 

Great God of blind Love, how pierce thy keen 

darts, 
Though, tipped with soft flowers, cool seemed 

they to me, 
In those crimson buds lurks a wild Hara flame. 
They blaze as Barava, e'en under the sea. 
Ah! thou and the moon, cruel one, e'er deceive! 
We call thy shafts flowered, and her bright 

beams cold, 
Who glories in dewy rays fire to shed, 
As thou to a diamond-point, flower-darts to 

mould. 

If thou, who now woundestme e'en to the heart, 
Dost grant me delight that I die through my 

love, 
Draw not to its head thy most merciless shaft — 
That the hurt may throb deeper — and ye, Gods 

above, 
Give that I may see her! Ah, fresh-blooming 

stems 
And leaves, were ye plucked by her own little 

hand? 
And tomala banks, with your breezes that waft 
Faint, shy lily-fragrance above from the strand 
Of spray-dashing Malni, and vine-covered 

grove — 
Sakuntala comes — on the firm, yellow sand 
The mark of her feet— my heart and my love ! 



38 PATR1S 



STUDENT'S SPEECH 

Sakuntala 

To the grey west, the moon, who kindles red beams 

Of asadhi, sinks to his low dawn-soft bed. 
While yonder the sun and his bright charioteer 
Drive up the steep hills, with their rosy veil 
spread. 

The night-flower leaves but a memory of sweet, 
Languishing still, as a bride, young and shorn 

Of her dearly beloved ; on vadari stems 

Quiver dewdrops all purple in tints of red morn. 

The peacock shakes out of his sleep, and departs 
From the cool hermit huts, thatched with 
hallowed grass ; 
And the antelopes spring from their beds near the 
stream ; 
The forest-leaves rustle as lightly they pass. 

How the pale moon is fallen and robbed of his 
beams — 

The moon who upon Sumuru, mountain-king, 
Set proudly his foot, and scattering night's rear, 

Even up to the palace of Vishnu did swing ! 



PATRIS 39 



WOOD-NYMPH'S SONG 
Sakuntala 

Waft, breezes, afar for her joying, 
Rich dust from purple flowers, 
Clear, silent pools of water, 
Green with the leaves of lotus ; 
Cool ye her woodland journey ; 
Grant your aid to her delight. 

LOFC. 



40 PATRIS 

THEOCRITUS, IDYLL I 

Description of a Cup 

Here is a bowl smoothed o'er with fragrant wax, 
Two-handed, newly carved, sweet-smelling still 
From 'neath the chisel ; all around the brim 
There weaves an ivy-vine, its glossy leaves 
With helichrys entwined ; the graceful shoot 
Is graven with the luscious, purple fruit. 

Within, a girl by workmanship divine 
Is wrought, well-garbed in fillet and in robe. 
Near by two men, dressed foppishly, hold strife, 
Now one and now another, in hot words. 
The maid, all coquetry, marks not their wrath, 
But now with smiles she turns one luckless head, 
And now again the other ; they, in love, 
Uselessly strive, on fire at her caprice. 

Near them is graven stark a rugged cliff, 
Upon it, hastening, a fisherman 
Wrinkled, but casting with a mighty throw 
His net, and straining as a brawny man. 
Such is the play of muscle, you would say 
You really saw him fish ; so swell the cords 
Upon his sinewy neck ; spite of his beard, 
All silver, he has youth's own strength. 

Beside the hale old salt, 
A branching vine, heaped high with ruddy fruit ; 
A youngster, sitting near the hedge, keeps watch 



PATRIS 41 

Thereover. Two sly foxes play 
About, one darting up and down the rows 
And nibbling grapes ; the other shrinkingly 
Creeps closer to the well-filled luncheon-bag, 
Resolving ne'er to let the rascal go 
Until he's left completely dinnerless. 
Meanwhile the boy, all ardor, plaiting grass, 
Weaves him a cage for crickets ; little care 
Has he for wallets, or for stolen fruit, 
So deeply buried in that cricket-cage. 

And over all the cup are carven thorns, 
Like foreign work — I know you'll like it well. 
So often as your lip shall touch its brim 
The golden Hours shall seem to bear you up 
To fullest joy. 



42 PATRIS 



THEOCRITUS, IDYLL I 

Extracts from the Lament for Daphnis 

"Where then were ye, O nymphs, when Daphnis 
wasted in sorrow? 

Gathering hyacinths fair in the fragrant vales of 
Peneius, 

Leading your light-footed revels upon the steep hill- 
slopes of Pindus? 

Surely you turned not your dance by the rushing 
river Anapus, 

Nor by the peaks of sharp /Etna, nor sacred waters 
of Acis." 
Lead, ah Muses beloved, lead the pastoral measure. 



Cypris came last to him, laughing, radiant, and 
blushing, and golden, 

Laughing in triumph deceitful, merciless e'en in her 
beauty, 

And taunting— "This, then, is the boaster who 
threatened to conquer sweet Cypris? 

See him now hopelessly caught in the meshes of mas- 
terful Eros !" 
Lead, ah Muses beloved, lead the pastoral measure. 



PATRIS 43 

Unto her Daphnis made answer, "Cypris, thou 
pitiless sweetness, 

Cypris all worthy of reverence, Cypris most bane- 
ful to mortals, 

By thy command has the sunlight faded from 
Daphnis forever? 

Nay — in the black depths of Hades Love will find 
Daphnis unconquered." 
Lead, ah Muses beloved, lead the pastoral measure. 



"Go to thy old love, Anchises, far on the green 

slopes of Ida, 
There take thy pleasure in oaks, not here in the 

low-lying sedges, 
Here, where the tawny-backed bees buzz round the 

honey-sweet beehives." 
Lead, ah Muses beloved, lead the pastoral measure. 



"Ah, wolves that lurk in the thickets, bears that 

climb fleetly the mountain, 
Farewell — no longer shall Daphnis revel with you 

in the woodlands, 
Nor in the thick-leaving copses, nor groves. 

And you, Arethusa, 
Farewell, and ye streams swiftly gushing in bright- 
flashing waters down Thymbris." 
Lead, ah Muses beloved, lead the pastoral measure. 



44 PATRIS 

" Pan, Pan, whether you dwell on the far-stretching 
range of Lycaeus, 

Or on the summits of Masnalus, come unto sea- 
compassed Sicily ; 

Come, great king, and bear with thee thy pipe, all 
grace and all fragrance, 

Scented with firm-pressed wax, carven with well- 
rounded mouthpiece. 

Conquered by pitiless Love, I journey alone to bleak 
Hades." 
Lull, ah Muses beloved, lull ye the pastoral measure. 



Thus the herdsman's life ended ; and Cypris would 

gladly have raised him, 
But all the slight thread of his fate had passed 

through the hands of the Moirse. 
So Daphnis crossed the dark river; the eddying 

swirls of the torrent, 
Rushing, closed over the man beloved of the 

Nymphs and the Muses. 



PATRIS 45 



LES NUITS DE JUIN 
Hugo 

In summer, when day flees away, flower-veiled, 
The plain pours wine-sweet from each blossom 
that sways ; 
Eyes closed, and ears straining for murmurings 
failed, 
I slumber, soft-mantled in transparent haze. 

The stars are more pure, every shadow a bower, 
A wandering half-day tints the dome arching 
high; 

And dawn, sweet and pale, only waiting her hour, 
Seems to wander all night at the edge of the sky. 



PATRIS 47 



WHENCE COMETH MY HELP 

Know ye the mountains and their wondrous peace? 
Ye who from worse than trial crave release, 
From bitter questioning of heaven and earth, 
Suspects of gladness, save for children's mirth ; 
Callous to sorrow, save for children's tears; 
Stung by injustice that will never cease — 
Know ye the mountains and their nameless peace? 

Surely there dwells not anywhere such calm, 

Such silence musical, a very psalm 

Of majesty to pierce the doubt of years. 

Up from the purpling grass that gently sways, 
Off to the dark-brown northern range I gaze ; 
Out to the silver sheet of water fair — 
The hills, aflame with sunset, still are there. 
E'en to the south, where lucerne fields are green, 
Around me gird the mountains, though unseen. 
Before their steadfast strength my feeble fears 
Pass as a breath on glass — my questions cease — 
Know ye the mountains and their wordless peace? 



48 PATRIS 



THE PHARISEE 

I thank Thee, Lord, that I am not 

As this girl here ; 
Old ribbons, worn, and out at heels, 

Year after year. 

I thank Thee when her ill-bred voice 

Essays to speak, 
I know enough of things to think 

And whisper " Freak !" 

I thank Thee my lot touches not 

At all with her ; 
I thank Thee for the whiting of 

My sepulchre. 



PATR1S 49 



THE CALLING OF THE WEST 

Around me vaguely hover 

Grim shadows of unrest. 
Steel clouds the hillside cover, 

Grey bank on bank thick-pressed ; 
But Midas-fingered, lying 
On sombre pines, low-sighing, 
The sunset lingers, dying, 

And calls me to the West. 

For where the daylight closes, 
With molten, golden sky, 

Lie, starred with pale primroses, 
My plains of alkali. 

And oh ! for purple hazes 

That o'er the mountains creep; 
For trackless, sandhill mazes, 

And bluffs of limestone steep; 
For stars as brightly beaming 
As distant watch-fires gleaming, 
Yet veiled with deeper dreaming 
Than crimson-poppied Sleep ! 



&PR 29 ' 908 



/ 

J 



LiDnnni \jr ouiNuncoo 




012 227 880 3 



